Four Legs Good Bakery

Written by: Korah Robinson Illustrated by: Kate Fuller Photography by: Phillip Ndowu

Warmth pours out of her kitchen and the scent of cinnamon wafts throughout the house. Her burnt orange nail polish, a stark contrast to the flour-covered counters, glows under the lights overhead. Watching her create new bakes and seeing the joy she exudes while doing what she loves would bring anyone tremendous delight. She smiles, rolling out dough, preparing to create something delicious.

Brooke Fenex, senior history major, owns and operates Four Legs Good Bakery — and is killing the vegan baking game.

Since she was a child, Fenex has been obsessed with baking and all things Food Network. Baking played an important role in her family life and built a connection between her and the women in her family.

“My grandmas were both really big home cooks. They were a part of the more traditional housewife generation and I always loved just sitting in the kitchen and watching my grandma bake. It was my favorite thing in the world,” Fenex says. “I started not only wanting to watch her; I wanted to participate. I wanted to know what she was making. Then, I started watching Food Network as a 7-year-old,” Fenex says with a laugh, preheating her oven to the perfect temperature for scrumptious vegan pumpkin scones with maple glaze. “That’s really all I watched. Rachael Ray, Bobby Flay, my man Guy Fieri. All the OG chefs.”

Brooke Fenex, owner of Four Legs Good Bakery and senior history major, delicately glazes her homemade vegan pumpkin spice cones with a decadent vegan icing.

Currently, Four Legs Good is contracting with major coffee shops across the Inland Empire, including a California Baptist University favorite, Arcade Coffee Roasters.

In May, Fenex took a sample box to Arcade Coffee Roasters and the rest, as they say, is history.

“I had the idea in January of this year and then it actually came to fruition about May. Even seeing my progress from then to now is crazy,” Fenex says. “Even my confidence in exploring other things and doing traditional pastries that I never thought I would be able to do has grown insanely.”

Regarding veganism, Fenex says “what matters most is spreading awareness and being cautious and making our best effort (to eat clean) given our circumstances and doing what’s best for our bodies.”

Now, Fenex’s business is booming in its first eight months and she has tapped into a growing market in the Inland Empire — vegan pastries and cakes.

While she contracts with different coffee shops in the area, one of Fenex’s favorite parts of her job is creating custom orders for people in surrounding communities.

Fenex, owner of Four Legs Good Bakery, takes her vegan pumpkin spice scones out of the oven in preparation for the final stage of icing.

Fenex says her favorite part of producing custom orders and working with different individuals is the ability to collaborate and share something she loves to do and to see people's faces light up with delight when they see and taste her creations.

“Food is love,“ Fenex says. “No one is happier than when you bring them a sweet. My absolute favorite thing is when I drop off a custom order and I get a text about how good it is or I'm tagged in a photo where people are just loving my creations. It’s amazing to share what I’m passionate about and see others have such a good experience with it.

While she has many of her recipes down to a science now, Fenex says there was definitely a learning curve when she first began curating her own recipes.

“A lot of (my learning) was honestly relying on the internet and understanding what these bakes were,” Fenex says.

“For example, I knew from the past and reading recipes that I’m supposed to put baking soda in this,” Fenex says, gesturing at her vegan pumpkin scone dry mix. “But what does it actually do? What purpose does it serve in the bake? Once I understood why these things were added to recipes, I started figuring out how to do it on my own and learned ways that I could make things that originally called for a lot of eggs or milk.”

“I began learning how to curate my own recipes, which was really fun but also really frustrating. I’ve had more than my fair share of spending six hours in the kitchen baking and nothing coming out right and ending up face down on the ground, drowning in my own tears. It definitely has been a process and I definitely think it’s a process I’m still in. I’m still learning how to do things.”

In the future, one of Fenex’s biggest dreams is to win a vegan baking competition on the Food Network.

“It’s coming, I can feel it in my bones,” Fenex says. “The first ever Food Network vegan baking show is on it’s way and I am going to win it. That’s the only option, really.”

While this is her biggest goal, Fenex is on her way to expanding her business beyond the walls of her home. In thenear future, she will be opening an official bakery in Riverside coffee shop Condron Brothers Coffee.

With regard to recipe-testing, Fenex says she can’t trust her own taste buds as she “just loves sweets.”

“If it has sugar in it,” Fenex says, “I’m going to think it tastes good no matter what. I just can’t taste my own recipes to get a good judgment of the flavor.”

Food is love. No one is happier than when you bring them a sweet.

Fenex lovingly mixes her all-natural ingredients together to create a delicious vegan pumpkin spice scone.

Enter mom Melody, dad Lindy and brothers Daniel and Zachai Fenex. Self-proclaimed “biggest fans” and taste testers for life, the Fenex family has been nothing but supportive of her and the mission of Four Legs Good bakery.

Fenex says family is everything to her and that she is so incredibly grateful to have the people in her life that she has supporting her efforts.

Melody Fenex, mom and taste-tester extraordinare, says Brooke’s affinity for baking has been around for as long as she can remember.

“She has always loved to bake,” Melody Fenex says. “She was the first person to ever tell me about Rachael Ray. I am her biggest fan. (Brooke) is an amazing young woman who has been through so much. You would think that I was put in her life to be her mom and to make her a better person but I truly think she was put in mine for that purpose.”

Fenex says, “I am so lucky to have the support system that I have. Not everybody gets that."

Her family behind her and big plans in the not too distant future, Fenex is making a name for herself in the vegan baking world. ◆